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Evans? What about Brahms?

Posted by rditmars (A) on May 1, 2007 at 08:56:25

In Reply to: Re: Should I? Maybe not. Ah, why not. posted by opinionated on April 30, 2007 at 17:56:26:

Melhdau bores you? Fine, why not leave it at that? Why extrapolate your taste to some measure of absolute worth?

[snip]

That duality is what I love about Brahms, so it might pop out in an improvisation or a composition of mine. One of the great aspects of jazz for me is the way you get influenced. First, you’re a fan. You get the goose bumps; you become bewitched by the music. If that process doesn’t take place, then whatever music – be it Brahms, Jelly Roll Morton or klezmer – won’t find its way into your vocabulary for very long, unless you’re on some weird mission to play music you don’t dig. Anything is fodder. With a kind of Pavlovian logic, what comes out of your horn will be your own happy bastardization of what you love the most – whatever music seduced you initially. "Should I study classical music?" is the wrong question for an improviser. If you don’t dig it, it won_t do anything for you.

[snip]

Alas, improvisation itself can be construed as a kind of interpretation: the direct, heartfelt interpretation of what’s closest to you at any given moment. But in that moment when my riff on Brahms slides out, it has no cognitive baggage. Theorizing comes later. Again, the rift between audience and player lessens in that appraisal. The pleasure I take in creating something, free of theoretical baggage, sounds very much like the non-referential, wordless pleasure that I receive from listening to music.

– Brad Mehldau, 2000

[end snip]

*
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." - Albert Einstein

• http://www.bradmehldau.com/writing/articles_jazz_brahms.html   (Open in New Window)

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